Edie Adams, 81; singer, actress, and wife of Kovacs

LOS ANGELES - Actress and singer Edie Adams, 81, the blond beauty who won a Tony Award for bringing Daisy Mae to life on Broadway and who played the television foil to her husband, comedian Ernie Kovacs, died Wednesday. Her publicist said she died of pneumonia and cancer.

A graduate of Juilliard School of Music, Ms. Adams hoped to become an opera singer but instead went on to gain fame for her sketches with Kovacs and her pivotal roles in two top Broadway musicals. For nearly two decades, she also was the sexy spokeswoman for Muriel cigars, singing and breathily cooing in TV commercials: "Why don't you pick one up and smoke it sometime?"

She was born Elizabeth Edith Enke in 1927 in Kingston, Pa., in Luzerne County, and grew up in Tenafly, N.J. She first attracted notice on the TV show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. Kovacs was then performing his innovative comedy show on a Philadelphia TV station, and his director saw her and invited her to audition.

With her innocent face and refreshing manner, Ms. Adams became the ideal partner for Kovacs' far-out humor. They eloped to Mexico City in 1954.

Kovacs moved his show - which appeared in various guises in the 1950s and early 1960s - to New York, where he became the darling of critics and discriminating viewers and hugely influential on other comedians. Both Kovacs and Ms. Adams garnered Emmy nominations in 1957 for best performances in a comedy series.

Ms. Adams found success on Broadway as well. She was acclaimed for her role as the sister to Rosalind Russell's character in the 1953 Wonderful Town. In 1957, she won a Tony for best supporting actress in a musical for her role as Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner.

She and Kovacs moved to Hollywood in the late 1950s, and both became active in films. In Billy Wilder's classic The Apartment, the 1960 Oscar winner for best picture, she played the spurned secretary to philandering businessman Fred MacMurray.

Among her other movies were Lover Come Back; Call Me Bwana; It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; Under the Yum Yum Tree; and The Best Man.

In early 1962, Kovacs was killed in a car crash. His widow faced debts of $520,000, trouble with the IRS, and a nasty custody battle over Kovacs' daughters, Betty and Kippie, from his first marriage. She and Kovacs also had a daughter, Mia, born in 1959. For a solid year, she worked continuously, doing movies, TV musical revues, and a Las Vegas act.

Over a career that spanned some six decades, Ms. Adams also appeared in various stage productions, had a short-lived TV show in 1963 that earned her two Emmy nominations, performed in nightclubs, and released several albums. In the 1980s and 1990s, she made appearances on such TV shows as Murder, She Wrote and Designing Women.

Over the years, she strove to keep Kovacs' comedic legacy alive by buying rights to his TV shows and repackaging them for television and videocassettes. After Kovacs, she had two brief marriages, to photographer Martin Mills and trumpeter Pete Candoli.